


Let The Bad Blood Dry

by oxiosa



Category: Hetalia - Fandom, Latin Hetalia - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Fist Fights, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, No Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28584147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxiosa/pseuds/oxiosa
Summary: Martín has been planning this hit for months. This is possibly the most dangerous mark he has ever hunted down; he will either kill or be killed tonight. He can’t nor will he back down.
Relationships: Argentina/Brazil (Hetalia)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 11





	Let The Bad Blood Dry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zulenha](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Zulenha).



> Characters belong to the Latin Hetalia community and their respective creators ♥
> 
> Argentina: Martín Hernández.  
> Brazil: Luciano Da Silva.  
> Uruguay: Sebastián Artigas

If Martín closes his eyes, he can remember that fateful morning like it was yesterday.

He remembers naked skin, shared smiles and whispered confessions among soft sheets and warm sunlight. He remembers the bone deep intimacy of the moment, the drunk giddiness of the promise of a better future. He had felt happy - truly and authentically happy -, only to have it all burn down with the rise of the sun.

He also remembers the explosion of his last day in paradise - can’t seem to be able to forget it no matter how hard he tries to. Remembers the fire reaching for him as he jumped into the ocean for dear life, the shards of glass and wood flying around like proyectiles. He remembers falling, and then sinking into a clean blue water. It had been so peaceful and quiet down there as he stared up at the fire and flames distorted on the surface. He watches in that dreamlike underwater world as his dream and everything he thought he knew burnt to a crisp.

Martín opens his eyes and wills the old ghosts of his memories away with a long swing of ice cold beer.

It was almost a year of that. He has far more pressing issues here and now.

He pulls his sunglasses up and stares at the vast wide waters from the safety of his sailboat. His only company is the sound of the wind on his sails and the gentle waves lapping at the hull of his boat, but he wouldn’t have it any other way - months on his own have taught him to find comfort in his solitude.

The sun paints the sky in vivid shades of orange and purple, announcing the soon fall of night. Several kilometres from the mainland, he has a beautiful view of Monte Carlo as the city slowly lights up and comes to life between the shadows of the coming night.

Martín takes another swing of his beer. He unconsciously reaches inside his pocket and his hand closes around the familiar shape of a cross pendant. He absently traces it with his fingers, twirls it around in what has become a recurrent obsessive tic. He knows the shape and weight of it by heart, to the point his fingertips are starting to develop calluses very much like a guitarist’s.

“You sure you wanna do this?”

Martín doesn’t even flinch at the bodiless voice whispering in his ear. He has been a secret agent for years - he’d be pretty much useless if his quartermaster startled him everytime he spoke to him through his earpiece.

He closes his hand around the cross tightly for a brief moment, and then lets go. He presses the earpiece to open his mic.

“You spying on me, Sebastián?” he asks with a warning note over his humorous tone.

Despite all the precautions Martín took to conceal his presence, he wouldn’t put it past Sebastián’s abilities to somehow get a visual of him. Sebastián has been from the start and Martín is fully aware of what he is capable of. There is no one better than Sebastián in the business, and Martín is nothing but grateful to have him on his side - he’d be very much in trouble if he didn’t.

“Don’t need to,” Sebastián’s smooth voice answers right back at him with his characteristic calmness. “Does that mean you are getting second thoughts though?”

“No,” Martín answers, perhaps a little harsher than necessary. He clears his throat, and asks; “Did you get the codes I ask you to?”

“Of course I have your codes. Who do you think you’re talking to,” Sebastián replies with a note of annoyance in his voice.

“Then spare me the Jiminy Cricket bullshit and send them to me,” Martín rolls his eyes at him.

“Always ahead of you,” Sebastián sighs nonchalantly.

Martín rises to his feet and heads inside. There is not much space below decks; there is a small kitchenette, a table, a little space resembling a living area and a bed at the back - all of them covered with pictures, articles, confidential documents, maps and gadgets of all sorts. It looks less like the fancy cabin one might expect from an elegant sailboat such as Martín’s and more like some sort of underground chamber in the backyard of some crazy paranoid old man whose head is rotten with conspiracy theories.

Martín takes a seat at the crowded couch and opens one of the three laptops scattered across the cabin. Just as Sebastián promised, the codes he asked for are already waiting for him at the ready. He scans and copies the data, connects the cloner to his computer and programs the code into a brand new blank key card.

In a matter of mere seconds, Martín has generated a master key that will allow him access to any room at Monte-Carlo’s Hotel de Paris.

“You are welcomed,” Sebastián chirps smugly on his ear.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks,” Martín replies with a roll of his eyes.

Martín had also entrusted Sebastián with hacking the hotel’s registration system and security camera, to which Martín accesses just to make sure he has not missed his mark. His target had checked in only two days ago and has a reservation for two more weeks, but Martín knows the latter means nothing; his target doesn’t stay in one place for long, it could be gone tomorrow first thing in the morning for all Martín knows.

He accesses today’s security recordings and plays them fast forward. He waits patiently until his facial recognition algorithms stop the recording at the exact moment it identifies the face Martín has tasked it to pin down. He freezes the image and stares at the blurry security footage. He carefully traces his mark’s features with his gaze, as if he already couldn’t picture his face with detail from memory alone.

He closes his eyes and frowns to himself - he hadn’t noticed he had once again reached inside his pocket and closed his fist around the cross pendant, its edges painfully digging into his palm.

Martín lets go of the pendant and closes his computer, shakes his head trying to forget the face on the screen. He stands, steps out of his clothes and hits the shower.

Night has fallen and it is time for his last dance.

Monte-Carlo’s Hotel de Paris is as impressive and luxurious as it sounds. It looks like a palace, magnificent as something out of a movie. Luxurious car after luxurious car stops by as the hotel’s guests arrive in a parade of opulence, and men and women waltz in and out in their best gowns and jewels, rushing by chatting and laughing in a surreal bubble of glamour. 

Martín stands at the entrance with one hand on his pocket, taking in the wonderful sight. He made sure to look his best tonight; he will need to if he wishes to blend in with the rich and opulent. He makes a charming figure in his dark suit, shiny shoes and slicked hair, and that will be as much a help as Sebastián’s hacking. He takes one last long drag of the cigarete he has been smoking and throws it to the floor with the impertinence of someone used to getting their way through life. He steps over it carelessly and heads inside the hotel with his chest out and his head up.

Martín has infiltrated to tighter places than this. He has a fake ID and a paid reservation under the identity of Dante Esposito as an alibi in case he were to be in need of one, but he isn’t worried. He has experience with this sort of places and this sort of people. The key to blend in is to act sure and entitled, demanding and snobbing. He smiles and winks at the pretty girl behind the front desk and waltzes in with a confident step as if he owned the place. Nobody stops it, doesn’t ask him any questions.

“5th floor, Suite 503,” Sebastián whispers quietly in his ear once he steps into the elevator.

Martín gives a little innocuous nod as thanks and presses the button to the 5th floor. Once he reaches it, he steps out of the elevator as its doors slide open without so much of a sound.

He heads for the Suite 503 and stands in front of it. He stares at the perfectly painted door and the elegant golden numbers for a moment, and takes a deep breath.

He raises his wrists and looks down at his watch very much like someone checking the time, and presses its crown. Nothing occurs, but Martín wouldn’t expect to see the effects of the short-range EMP bomb he just detonated. The bomb’s burst of electromagnetic energy may not be visible or tangible, but it will generate a magnetic interference disruptive to electronic devices. Any electric security system his target might have up to alert them of intruders is now dead.

Martín takes his new master key out and presses it to the door’s lock. It doesn’t even take a second for it to let out a chirpy beep and for a green light to turn on. Martín quietly pushes the door open, slides inside the suite quiet as a mouse, and carefully closes the door behind himself.

His target's suite is as impressive as the hotel’s outsides. Glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling, tasteful paintings frame the walls and freshly picked flowers decorate the table. It is all very luxurious and classy, the kind of life not many can afford.

Martín steps into the wide lounge room and takes his surroundings; two couches, a coffee table, a flat screen and a desk, all very fancy and fashionable. The terrace’s doors are wide open letting in a chilly salty sea breeze that gently dances with the silk curtains. The suite is dark and empty, but Martín is not alone; he can see a thin strip of light coming from the bedroom. Martín braces himself and walks inside with slow careful steps, a hand at ready over the knife he carries on the back of his belt.

The bedroom shares the same luxurious accommodations as the lounge room - there is an impossibly wide bed at the center with two stylish nightstand tables, a wardrobe and an elegant chaise lounge on the corner sided by a small round coffee table.

The light Martín is tracking comes from the cracked bathroom door. As he steps closer, he can now also hear water running and a masculine voice half-humming, half-singing in the shower. The sound of that voice sends Martín’s heart racing, catches his breath in his throat and makes his head drum.

“You can still walk away,” Sebastián’s voice calls from his comm.

Martín has been planning this hit for months. This is possibly the most dangerous mark he has ever hunted down. He has hunted down thousands of criminals, dealers, smugglers, you name it. He has hunt down challenges before, has flirted with death before, but never has he been in front of a mark who he is so certain will meet his match. He will either kill or be killed tonight.

He can’t nor will he back down. 

Martín steps back, walks to the coffee table by the chaise lounge, where a bottle of brandy and a half drunk glass stand. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the cross pendant - it feels so much heavier than it should in his hand.

Martín halfheartedly wishes he could forget about that particular night in Bora Bora. He had risen the next morning sore from his previous mission and the previous night’s activities, but he had also felt happy and content. He hadn’t paid any mind to the fact that his bed had been empty. He only realised something was wrong while slipping into his clothes - only then had he noticed that his luggage alone remained in the wardrobe, as if no other presence had inhabited the same room as Martín. Only an abandoned pendant glimmering on the lounge room’s table remained as the only sign hinting Martín had not spent the night on his own. He had walked to the table, picked it up and stared at it, puzzled. Then he had noticed the small electronic device by its side, and he had barely had time to jump out of the bungalow and into the ocean’s waters before the little screen on the device reached zero and the bungalow blew up into flames.

Martín can’t turn away now. He has little too loose and a thirst that will only be sated with blood.

He runs his finger over the pendant one last time, as if trying to commit its shape to memory, and carefully leaves it right next to the glass. 

“Thank you for your services, Sebas,” Martín answers. “You’ve been a true friend.”

“Martín…” is the last Martín hears from him before he turns off the comm for good.

He perks up when he hears the water of the shower come to a stop. Swift and silent, he quietly steps back in the shadows just as his target emerges from the bathroom in a white warm cloud of steam, soaking wet and dripping over the floor wearing only a towel around his waist.

It is unfair and a little ironic, but Luciano still looks as painfully handsome in person as Martín has always found him to be.

Luciano heads for the coffee table, takes the half empty glass and down his drink down in one go. He remains still and silent as he stares at the wonderful view of the Meditarrean Sea. He reaches for the brandy bottle, and then his body goes perfectly still. He places the empty glass back onto the coffee table without so much of a sound, and picks up the pendant. He examines it quietly, doesn’t turn around when Martín steps out of hiding without bothering to hide the loud thump of his steps.

“I assume you’re not here only to return my crucifix,” Luciano muses calmly without bothering to look up.

“No,” Martín replies, tilts his chin up at the strong cut of Luciano’s handsome back. “I’m not.”

Luciano leaves the pendant back on the table and turns around. Their eyes meet and Martín holds his stare defiantly.

Luciano’s eyes have always been beautiful and warm. Once upon a time, what feels like ages ago, they had regarded Martín with mirth and fondness, even annoyance and anger from time to time. But never have they ever granted him as coldly and cautiously as Luciano is doing right now.

“I was hoping you’d be smarter than that,” Luciano says and a humourless smile spreads across his lips. “I should have known better. Guess that makes me the bigger fool, uh?”

“It does,” Martín agrees.

Then he lounges forward.

Like many things with Luciano, this is not the first time they have fought in close-combat quarters. Life as two secret agents from different services has forced them to cross paths in less than friendly terms more than once, but this time it is different. What once had felt challenging and thrilling, brawls filled with flirty banter and peacocking is now reduced to ruthless confrontation.

Martín pushes Luciano until he hits the wall, presses his forearm against Luciano’s throat with all the force of his body weight. He would have crushed his windpipe if it wasn’t for the fact that Luciano is just as strong and manages to hold his ground. Martín presses forward, determined to end this mission - end Luciano’s _life_ \- and bares his teeth like a wild animal right back at Luciano’s snarl. It takes Luciano a little struggle to eventually manage to shove Martín off, push him a few steps back to get some footing, but Martín won’t have it; he is right back into Luciano’s space throwing a punch in his direction. Luciano reacts quickly, and in one swift turn shreds his towel off, wraps it around Martín’s wrist and moves out of the way just as the punch is about to connect with his face. He uses Martín’s momentum to push him face first into the wall and lock his trapped arm behind his back in a tight grip. Martín pushes back, but soon Luciano’s solid form is pressing against him, a relentless force pinning him in place.

“I don’t wanna do this,” Luciano growls through gritted teeth against his ear, and it sends a shiver down Martín’s back.

It is not the first time Martín finds himself in this position - with Luciano’s naked hips deliciously pressed against his ass, his knee between his legs and his lush lips breathing heavily in his ear - and Martín curses at his treacherous brain and body for remembering it all far too well.

“Too bad,” he hisses back, throws his head back and headbutts Luciano as hard as he can.

Luciano curses loudly and staggers back, and the sudden startle is enough for Martín to be able to peel him off his back. He turns around and before Luciano can get his footing back, Martín shoves him into the bed, pins him down by straddling his waist and catching the punch Luciano throws in his direction with his bare hand. The fight is over the moment Luciano feels the cold blade of Martín’s knife on his skin, surgically placed between his upper ribs in such a manner only the slightest of pressure would be enough for it to dig into his flesh and go through his heart.

Luciano stops struggling, defeated. He looks up at Martín with full parted lips and heaving chest. He is naked under Martín, completely bare and vulnerable, and yet he holds Martín’s eyes unwavering. Unafraid.

The last time Luciano had been under Martín like this, breathless and naked, was the night before the explosion. He had moaned and called Martín’s name, had clung to him and whispered against his lips that he loved him. Martín can almost see their surroundings shift; he is suddenly back in Bora Bora, back in that little bungalow where nothing had mattered but the two of them entangled together.

The memory sends a sharp twinge of pain through Martín’s heart and an unbearable sting of burning humiliation through his pride.

“Why?” he hisses with a snarl into Luciano’s face. “Tell me _why._ ”

“I had to follow orders,” Luciano replies with a tense clipped voice. “You know how this works, Martín...”

Martín does. There are three main rules to their line of work; the mission always comes first, don’t get caught alive, and never ever disobey direct orders. An agent who can’t follow these simple rules has no value for an agency and gets put down very much like some rabid dogs. 

Hearing what Martín already knows doesn’t make it any better.

“To think I would have expected better from you...” he spits with venom.

They had lied together and they had made _love_ and Luciano had promised. They had held each other and had agreed that that awful mission would be their last. That they would pack their things and leave this life of danger and uncertainties, that they would find some quiet place where their agencies wouldn’t find them to settle down and start a life, together. No more missions, no more guns, no more killing. Just the two of them, safe and happy.

Luciano had promised. He had given him his word and he had said he _loved_ Martín, and Martín had believed him like some fool.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Luciano sputters back. He spits a curse under his breath, and continues; “They knew, Martín. There was no running, no hiding… The second they knew of our little plan they gave me a choice; it was either you or me.”

Anger rises from Martín’s core. He presses the blade closer to Luciano’s ribs and draws the first drop of blood.

“So you made your choice,” he growls angrily.

“So I gave us _both_ a chance to survive,” Luciano snaps back as fiercely. “I knew you’d survive the explosion. I had to convince my people I was on their side, and I had to give you some sort of cover to run and hide. And it worked, didn’t it?”

It had, in a way. Martín Hernández is dead to the world; he has become a ghost, the shadow of a phantom lurking in the dark, untraceable and unreachable in ways he had never been before.

It is still not enough for Martín.

“Why should I believe you?”

“If I truly wanted you dead that morning, you wouldn't be standing here alive,” Luciano answers flatly.

It would have been so easy to slit Martín's throat while he slept, and yet Luciano had taken the course of action with the least probabilities of success. It makes sense, but Luciano is far from being off the hook.

“Why not tell me?” Martín demands.

“Because you’d have never agreed to it!” Luciano snaps with an annoyed roll of his eyes. “You are too much of a stubborn asshole who’d rather die than retreat.”

“So you push me away and let me think you tried to kill me instead?!” Martín huffs in disbelief.

“Yes!” Luciano replies with exasperation. His frown deepens, and his eyes fire up with intensity. “If hating me is the price of keeping you safe, then so be it!”

“You should have told me,” Martín says hotly. Stupid _wonderful_ Luciano should have told him. Martín had been so mad for so long, his judgement too clouded with fury and pain to see clearly. As his anger recedes, it shifts into something different. Annoyance. Disbelief. Hurt. _Relief_. “You should have told me, Luciano, you should have said anything…”

“I had to keep you safe,” Luciano answers, narrowing his eyes defensively. “I had to-”

Martín interrupts him with a kiss. Luciano goes rigid below him, but it doesn’t take long for him to melt under Martín’s weight, take Martín’s face between his hands with surprising tenderness and kiss him back. It starts soft and sweet, but doesn’t stay so for long - Martín drops his knife, and they hold each other close and tight as the kiss grows deeper and hotter.

“I meant everything I said,” Luciano mumbles breathlessly between Martín’s lips. “I never lied to you, Martín. I meant everything I said that night.”

Martín knows. He tries to kiss him again, but Luciano turns his face to the side and gently pushes him back.

For a brief surreal moment, Martín’s blood runs freezing cold and he thinks he has been taken for a fool again. He can see it unfold so easily in his mind; it’d only take Luciano to pick up the knife he just dropped and bury it on his stomach. It is a quick intrusive thought, a flashing flitting vision of his rotten head, but Luciano seems to catch it in the way his eyes meet him with sudden unrooted terror. He places a gentle hand on Martín’s face, and joins their lips again in a tender kiss that he breaks again all too soon. He joins their foreheads, anchors him there until Martín’s muscles relax again at the lack of any true danger.

“We need to go,” Luciano whispers in the small space between their lips. “They probably know you’re alive by now.”

“I was careful,” Martín objects weakly, unwilling to move.

“We were careful last time too,” Luciano replies. He regards Martín with sweet worried eyes. “We have to run away.”

He gently pushes Martín off his lap, and strides to his wardrobe. Martín all but follows after him, catches him before he can slip into anything further but a pair of underwear and sweatpants. Martín gently pushes Luciano until he corners him again against a wall, traps both of Luciano’s wrists and pins his hands over his head in a loose grip he can easily break if he so ever wishes to.

Luciano doesn’t. He looks up, and Martin meets those big brown eyes with a frown. 

“Together you mean?”

“I did say ‘we’, didn’t I?” Luciano replies and tries to offer him a small smile.

Martín hums, unsatisfied with the answer.

He looks down, and regards Luciano’s chest with absent half interest. Half naked, covered in a thin layer of sweat after their little brawl and stretched like this for Martín to take in without reservations, Luciano makes a lovely view. Martín keeps Luciano’s hands over his head, but lets one of his hands slide down his arm and trace the lean strong muscles of his arm and chest. He curls his fingers around Luciano’s throat in a loose grip and feels his pulse under his finger, strong and firm. _Calm_.

“For real this time?” Martín asks.

He doesn’t mean it as a backhanded question, but it still makes Luciano wince. He breaks Martín's grip over his hand, takes hold of Martín's nape and joins their lips again in one sweet flitting kiss.

“Yes,” he answers when he pulls away, holds Martín's stare with open sincerity. “For real.”

Martín’s nods, and once again believes Luciano's words. He lets his hand slides up his throat and trace the curve of his strong jaw - Luciano has always been very handsome, a study of rich bold features. Martín can’t help to gently trace Luciano’s full lips with his thumb and stare at them.

“I thought you said running away was useless,” he points out.

“I had a better plan, but you just so happen to have ruined it,” Luciano answers. He takes Martín’s hand, plants a sweet kiss on his palm, and then places it over his beating heart. He regards Martín with a deep frown and hard eyes. “My Agency wants you dead, Martín - will want _me_ dead too once they find out I didn’t carry out their orders, if they don’t already know by now.”

Luciano is right in two things; he failed to carry the order his Agency gave him, which makes him a target as much as Martín himself. The second, there is so much running and hiding they can do before their respective Agencies find them and execute them.

Martín sees only one other possible solution.

“Then we go after them,” he says.

Luciano grants him a perplexed stare. He remains quiet for a beat, as if waiting for Martín to explain himself. When Martín doesn’t, his frown deepens;

“Did you not hear everything I just said?” he sputters. “They’ll kill us, Martín… Do you really think the two of us stand a chance against two whole Secret Intelligence Service Agencies?”

“We don’t need to,” Martín answers. “We just need to take down two people.”

Luciano’s frown unknits and his eyebrows raise in surprise as Martín's words sink in.

“The Head Masters,” he whispers with realisation. He blinks, and mumbles to himself; “Cut the beast’s head, and let the body die with it...”

A wide wild smirk spreads across Martín’s lips.

“I’m sure we can make them see reason if we present our case persuasively enough,” he says.

“We’ll need some leverage to convince them leaving us alone is within their best interest,” Luciano hums thoughtfully, and Martín can almost see the gears turning inside his head as he thinks the plan over. He meets his eyes with a sharp careful expression. “Messing with people that powerful is mad...”

“I know.”

“A dead sentence,” Luciano adds.

“We're already dead, are we not?” Martín reasons. “What's there to loose?”

Luciano remains silent for a moment, as if there were many other options to consider.

“It won’t be easy,” he murmurs.

It won’t, but it happens to be their best course of action. They could try to run away, hide in the furthest corner on the world. But both of them know better. This is what these organizations do for a living; find people no one else can find and terminate them. They are above any law and any State, two all-powerful monster with tentacles even in the remotest of places. Martín and Luciano are experienced agents, as clever and resourceful as they come, but there is so much running they could do. It would only take one mistake for the game to be over. One little mistake, and they would be dead. They would have to spend the rest of their days watching over their shoulders, waiting for an imminent attack - because their persuers will eventually catch up. They would always eventually catch up. It would be a futile race against time, a marathon that will eventually wear them down and turn them into easy prey. Such a feat is doomed to fail.

It is not the life Martín had envisioned for Luciano and himself. It is not the life he wants - the life they deserve.

“Good thing we've got the best two agents out there on the job then,” he answers smugly, drunk in his own daring, and Luciano can't help but to share his smile.

Martín is confident in their abilities - both of them are top agents and have always made a great team whenever circumstances allowed them to work together and not against each other. If anyone can bring to all-powerful agencies to their knees, it is the two of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Alas here it is my Brarg Secret Santa 2020 for Zu! Hope you enjoyed it, love!


End file.
